Privacy
Last updated October 12, 2026
The short version. This is a joke website run by Pat's friends. It keeps what you choose to send it, so that Pat and a few friends can read it and, if you left a way to reach you, follow up. Pat can also add people he has met himself. It has no ads, no tracking across the internet, and no cookies, and it doesn't sell anything about you. You can ask for what it kept to be deleted, here's how.
Who runs this
Have You Met Pat? (haveyoumetpat.com) is run by a small group of Pat's friends, who call themselves the committee. Pat is a real person who knows about it. For questions about this page, use the Forget me form if you want something deleted, or message @haveyoumet_pat on Instagram for anything else. Friends read those messages.
What you can send, and what happens to it
Everything on the site is optional unless a form says it isn't.
- Rate Pat: a score from 1 to 5, how you know Pat, a comment, and a name if you want to leave one.
- Apply to meet Pat: your name, a way to reach you (email, phone, or Instagram), your stance on dogs, an ideal first date, a walk-up song, and a sentence on why. Optionally your pronouns, your Instagram, and how you heard about it. You have to be 18 or older.
- Certificate: your name and where you met Pat. If you tick the box, it can be put up on Instagram as your first name and last initial only, never your full name, and only after a person approves it. You have to be 18 or older to tick it.
- Petition: a name, if you want to sign with one.
- Compatibility test: your answers, and optionally a name, a way to reach you, your Instagram, and a favorite flower. Leaving a way to reach you means you're 18 or older.
- PAT > MATT: a nickname and a score. The top scores are shown to anyone who plays.
- Tell Pat more: four optional answers, plus your Instagram and LinkedIn if you want. You have to be 18 or older.
- Forget me: the email, phone, or Instagram you used, so it can be found and deleted.
Who sees it
Most submissions are posted to a private Discord channel. Pat and a handful of friends who run the site read them, react with emojis, and forward the good ones to Pat. Two forms are the exception: when someone fills in Tell Pat more, Discord gets one line and a link, never the answers, and when someone uses Forget me, Discord hears only that a request came in, never who.
If you leave a name or a way to reach you, the site also keeps it in a private list that only Pat and those friends can open, and they sign in with Google to do it. That is so Pat can follow up and so they can tell your submissions apart: your browser keeps a random code for this, and the site uses it only to link submissions that carry a name or a way to reach you. Pat and the friends can add notes to that list about how things went with someone, and Pat keeps some notes that only he can read. Those are encrypted. Deleting you deletes the notes about you too.
Pat can also add someone to that list himself: a person he met in person or on an app, with whatever he knows about them and his notes. That person may never have used this site. Forget me finds them the same way, by the email, phone, or Instagram saved for them.
A submission with no name and no way to reach you is not kept in that list, and nothing ties it to anyone. It reaches Discord and the running totals, and that's all.
What can end up public
- Nothing you send is posted anywhere unless you tick the box that says so, with two exceptions that are about nicknames: the PAT > MATT leaderboard in the game, and a new top PAT > MATT score (nickname and score), which can be proposed for Instagram.
- Every Instagram post is a proposal until a person approves it. Proposals wait up to 14 days, and the picture for an approved post is held for 2 days while Instagram fetches it. A travel post Pat schedules ahead is held until 14 days after its date, and its picture until 3 days after.
Instagram and comments
The committee uses Meta's Instagram API, with the @haveyoumet_pat account that it runs, for two things: publishing the posts a person approved, and reading and answering comments on that account's own posts.
When you comment on one of Pat's posts, Instagram (Meta) handles that under its own privacy policy. The committee can then see your comment and your username on a private page, can reply in the thread as @haveyoumet_pat, and can hide a comment. Here is what the site keeps from that:
- A copy of the comments for 2 minutes, so the page doesn't ask Instagram for everything each time it's opened.
- The text of any reply we send, and which friend sent it, for 45 days. A reply can begin with the @username of the person it answers, so that username can be kept with it.
- A note, with the comment's ID and which friend made it, when a friend decides a comment needs no reply, for 45 days. The note holds no comment text and no username.
- An activity log of those actions, for 14 days. A reply's text appears in it, so a commenter's @username can too. It never holds the comment itself.
We don't match commenters to the private list above, the page can only reply in the thread, we don't use Instagram data for ads, we don't sell or share it, and we don't use it to train AI. To remove your own comment, delete it on Instagram. To ask us to remove something we kept, see below.
Photos the committee sends
Pat and the friends can send photos from the private page. An AI assistant looks at those photos and drafts a short fact to go with each one, and a person approves it before anything is posted. The contents of the submissions above, and Instagram comments, are not given to an AI assistant.
What the site collects without being asked
- No cookies from the site. Your browser's own storage keeps small things on your device: a random code, your best PAT > MATT score and name, whether you muted the game, and how many times you've answered yes. They stay on your device, and you can clear them any time.
- Your IP address for 2 minutes, to slow down bots when you send something. It is not stored with anything you send. If you try to sign in to the private page, your IP address is kept for up to 2 days, to limit sign-in attempts.
- Running totals: the Pat Score, petition signatures, and similar counts. They are sums and counts, with no names in them.
Other companies that touch your data
- Vercel hosts the site and receives the usual request details, such as your IP address and browser, in its server logs.
- Upstash runs the database where the site keeps what's described above.
- Discord holds the private channel where submissions are posted.
- Google serves this site's typefaces, so it receives your IP address and browser when a page loads. The friends who run the site also sign in with Google, and the site keeps each one's Google account ID and email while they're a member.
- Instagram (Meta), as described above.
- Calendly, only if you follow a "Schedule a date with Pat" button. We send it nothing but a note that you came from this site.
How long it's kept
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Name and contact details (the private list) | Until you ask to be forgotten. |
| Anonymous submissions | Only as running totals. The Discord message stays in the channel until a friend deletes it. |
| Submissions in Discord | Until a friend deletes them. See deleting your data. |
| PAT > MATT leaderboard | Until it's removed. Ask us to remove a nickname. |
| Your IP address | 2 minutes when you send something. Up to 2 days if you try to sign in to the private page. |
| Forget me requests | Until a friend handles them, then deleted. The request holds the contact you typed. |
| Instagram post proposals and the activity log | 14 days. A travel post Pat schedules ahead is held until 14 days after its date. |
| Pictures held for posting | 2 days. A scheduled travel post's picture is held until 3 days after its date. |
| Comment copies, reply records, and "no reply needed" notes | 2 minutes for the copy. 45 days for the others. |
| Photos the committee sends | 30 days while waiting. Kept if approved. Deleted if passed on or removed. |
| Sign-in details of the friends who run the site | While they're a member. |
Deleting your data
Use the Forget me form on the home page. Give it the email, phone, or Instagram you used. One of Pat's friends deletes everything the site stored from what you sent, and every note about it. A person handles each request, so it isn't instant.
The site can't delete a Discord message by itself, so a friend removes the messages that name you by hand when they handle your request.
The site then keeps one thing: a one-way fingerprint of that contact, so it recognizes it if it comes back. It can't be turned back into your contact. If that contact had been marked "never" (Pat doesn't follow up, and the site never proposes its certificate for Instagram), the fingerprint remembers that, and nothing else.
To have a nickname taken off the leaderboard, a reply we wrote removed, or anything the form can't reach, message @haveyoumet_pat on Instagram. If you live somewhere with privacy laws, such as the EU, the UK, or California, you may also have rights to see, correct, or delete what's kept about you, or to object to how it's used. Use the same two routes and we'll answer.
Age
This site is for adults. Anything that leaves a way to reach you requires you to say you're 18 or older. If you think someone under 18 sent something, tell us and it will be deleted.
Security
The database can be reached only with credentials the site holds, and only Pat and the friends who run it can open the private list, after signing in. Pat's private notes are encrypted. No system is perfect, so please don't send anything you wouldn't be comfortable having a few friends read.
Changes
When this page changes, the date at the top changes with it. If we start sharing what the site keeps with a new service, we'll say so on the home page first.